How many of you out there don’t think you need the full-blown features of Microsoft Word and just need a simple text editor. Do you use WordPad? Do you have a bunch of old WordPad files that you can’t open now on your computer. The converters aren’t available by default on your initial installation.
There’s a simple little registry tweak that lets you open these files.
Fortunately, a simple Registry tweak will enable Win XP SP2′s WordPad to read these files. Launch Regedit from the Start menu’s Run dialog and navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Applets\Wordpad.
In the right-hand pane look for a DWORD value named EnableLegacyConverters.
If it’s not present, right-click in the right-hand pane, choose New | DWORD Value from the menu, and name the value EnableLegacyConverters.
Double-click that value and change its data from 0 to 1. You might have to restart Windows for this change to be recognized.
Why don’t they just enable stuff like that from the beginning? Did it take any more space? Did it slow down performance? Why make it harder for your users to do something they may need to do right out of the box?
I know you could probably stretch that argument in a number of different directions, but this one just seems like a very easy, low impact change that would have been nice.
Source: PC Magazine – Bring Wordpad Up To Speed
